


A Kingdom By the Sea

by thesecondseal



Series: The Knight and the Seawolf's Daughter [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Asexuality Spectrum, Character Development, Demisexuality, F/M, First Love, Friendship/Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-21 19:48:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7401421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecondseal/pseuds/thesecondseal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before she became the Hero of Ferelden, Elissa Cousland had every intention of following–albeit a little more softly–in her mother’s footsteps. As much Mac Eanraig as Cousland, the only calling upon Lis’s young heart was that of the sea, and her love for (the future Ser) Kellen Gilmore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Of Knights and Ladies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet Elissa Cousland (age 7) and (not yet Ser) Kellen Gilmore (age 11).

Her hair was long and thick and perpetually unruly. It was years before Elissa learned how to wrangle it into smooth coils and intricate braids, styles that lasted with little enough maintenance for the better part of a week. She considered cutting it more than once, but Maker she was vain about it, and her father loved it. Not that he would have ever told her she couldn’t cut it, but wash night was Lis’s favorite night of the week and even when she should have been old enough to tend her hair herself, she still met her parents every Thursday in their quarters. She and her mother washed their hair together, chatting about the week, and then, while the teryna sat on her tufted vanity stool, Lis would sit at her father’s feet while he patiently combed sweet nut oil through her hair.

Lis loved listening to her parents talk. They discussed everything from teryn business to natural history, both having no small fondness for life beneath and around the Waking Sea. Lis learned about how to run a keep and harvest projections, she learned about trade routes and great blue fish larger than cargo ships. But mostly, she learned about love, how bright it could burn in the hearts and eyes of two people who were above all else, each other’s favorite miracle in the Maker’s whole, vast world.

She knew, long before she was old enough to understand just what her parents shared, that she would not settle for less than that in her own life.

Halfway through her sixth summer, Kellen Gilmore came to foster at Highever. Lis thought she knew him even before he arrived. Her mother talked about him and his mother all the time. Their names spoken as often and fondly as the rest of her families’. Eleanor had known Lady Piper since childhood, and the two wrote back and forth forever. Each Satinalia a letter would arrive with a small portrait of the family, Piper, Ben, and their son Kellen. The artist was skilled, or so Lis’s mother insisted, but years of inks and watercolors had failed to capture the boy who soon ran herd over the keep’s children and the castle yards.

Kel was unfailingly polite, but Lis couldn’t decide how she felt about him. Those were her yards, after all, and while the other kids didn’t always listen to her the first time, enough knocks all around and her place at the top of the pack was relatively secure.

For his part, Kel didn’t seem to care about the pack; he stood just outside, always watching. He had a shock of red hair, bright as a candle flame, dark grey eyes, with blue that spun from the outer rim of his pupils depending on his moods or the color of his tunic. His face was warm and ruddy, freckled, with wide crooked nose above an even wider crooked smile, and unlike most of the brats—and oh, yes, they were all brats—who visited the castle with their highborn families, Kellen was something different. He was between her and Fergus in age, and he seemed to keep up with her brother in books as easily as he tolerated the younger kids’ antics. He had quiet hands, something her father had taught her was a good measure of a man. Lis might have liked him if he hadn’t extended that patience to a group of boys she kept asking her mother to put in the stocks.

They teased her too often, fingers reaching for hems and hair as if they had any right. _They sure as the Blight did not._ Lis gave them back their offense in twice the measure and made no few enemies for her trouble.

“I know they shouldn’t,” he father said to her one evening, running a comb through a tangled snarl one such fight had made of her braid. “But couldn’t you ask them to stop before you set upon them with fists and feet?”

Eleanor Cousland made a low sound of rebuttal, but Lis didn’t give her mother time to continue. “They don’t exactly ask if they can touch me,” she retorted hotly. “So, no, father. I will not ask.”

“You’re right, pup.” He bussed a kiss to the back of her head. “I’m sorry. Shall I…?”

“No,” Eleanor shook her head. “We’ll teach them better, but Elissa will learn to fight her own battles. She knows we’re here if ever she needs us.”

Her mother raised a brow in query.

“I do,” Lis assured her.

Not that anyone else seemed to think she could fend for herself.

Fergus was near obnoxious in his brotherly defense of her honor, and as Lis grew, would-be rescuers seemed to materialize every other day from the very stones of Highever. Kel proved to be quite different. When one of the boys he had been playing stickball with tried to trip Lis, he didn’t intervene like a half dozen of the others who were always hoping to impress her father, or—Maker, forfend—woo her even when she was far too young to be wooed.  No, Kel simply stood back, an unapologetic smirk on his face as Lis yanked the stick from her attacker and knocked the young lord Randal or Bernard or whatever his name was to the ground with his own weapon.

“You’ll heal,” Lissa said as the boy covered his bleeding nose with both hands and set about making all manner of fuss. “Next time I’ll hit you harder.”

She stomped off, irrationally angry that there were three drops of blood on the lace cuff of her favorite blouse.

“If you keep your weight on your back foot,” Kel called after her. “You won’t overextend.”

“What?” Hands on her hips, Lis turned back.

“Just,” Kel shrugged as if his suggestions didn’t matter, nor her opinions of them.  And maybe they didn’t. He was twelve, he couldn’t possibly care what an eight year old thought. “If you don’t want to commit to a full fight, allows you an easier disengage.”

“Thank you.”

“Kellen Gilmore,” he said, even though she knew exactly who he was. They had only been sharing a castle for the better part of two years. He jerked his chin back toward himself with the introduction.

“Elissa Cousland,” she nodded in kind. “But…”

She took a deep breath, hoping her judgment was sound. “My friends call me Lis.”

“Nice to meet you, Lis.” He grinned, nudging the still shrieking boy with one foot. “Hush. You’re just embarrassing yourself, lad. Take your due punishment with some honor, then don’t repeat the behavior.”

He sounded older than he was, and he sounded, Lis thought, like a knight. All brusque orders and propriety and a tall straight spine. Ser Markus, the captain of her father’s guard, would be impressed. She tendered him a bow.

“I wish you luck with this rabble, Ser Gilmore.” It was a phrase she had heard her father use more than once to Ser Markus.

Kel blinked at her in surprise and she saw then how his gaze moved across the busy yard to the knights who were training. “You think…you think I could be a knight?”

A dream then. Lis knew a little about those. One day, if it was the Maker’s will, she would have a ship of her own, just as her mother had.

Lis nodded soberly. “Yeah, I do.”

“Your father says that if I’m to serve here, they’ll have to send me away to train.”

“Find another foster for you?” Well, Lis didn’t like that at all, and she had no idea why.

Kel nodded. “When I’m fifteen. Says I can go to a friend of his in Denerim.”

Three years. She wasn’t sure what that meant except that she would be through--Maker willing--with her Orlesian tutor. Three years. She might not even like him then.

“I wish you luck.” She spared the rest of the noise not another glance, but she dropped Kel a deep curtsy. “Good day, Ser Gilmore.”

He bowed in kind, a smile teasing his lips. “Good day, Lady Cousland.”

Three years, Lis thought heading to the laundry for help with her shirt. Nothing had ever seemed farther away, except for maybe that “when you’re older” her parents liked to warn her about.

*

Elissa had been right when she thought that three years were a lifetime, and in those long sweet months she had found in Kel a heart as stalwart as her mabari’s, a mind as quick as her own. They were an odd pair, she knew, wandering the keep together discussing everything from sword skills to sailcraft dreaming of the day they were both captains, Kel of the Knights of Highever, Lis of the Seawolf—the ship she fully intended to name for her mother one day. Not that she fancied herself a raider. Lis only wanted to explore, to learn the secrets of the Waking Sea. **  
**

And Kel? Kel wanted only to serve. He was a guardian, he said. As drawn to the calling as a warden to Deep Roads. Lis could only admire such devotion, and every day she thanked the Maker that her family, that her home, had earned such a place in his loyalties. When she thought of her future homecomings, Kel was always there, waiting with her parents and Fergus, and whatever saint of a woman might one day decide to put up with her brother.

“Do you think you’ll get married?” she asked Kel one late summer evening.

She was ten, and he was fourteen, and she didn’t care that the older boy didn’t seem an appropriate confidant for a young girl. Her father—Maker, bless him—had only visited the subject once and the visiting lord to broach that topic with him had brought such honest offense that Lis knew Bryce Cousland loved Kel as much as she did.

“Maybe?” Kel shrugged, long fingers never pausing on the small piece of oak he was whittling; Lis thought it might have been a dolphin in the making. “There isn’t a rule against knights marrying.”

“No,” Lis mused. “Though there seems to be one against ladies not marrying.”

Amid the exit argument between her father and Lord Andren, there had been some question about Lis’s marital eligibility.

“I’m ten,” she pointed out angrily. “I don’t even have tits yet.’

Kel’s bark of laughter meant she had surprised him, something she did regularly enough.

“Do not,” he admonished, snickering too hard to properly reprimand her. “Say ‘tits’, Elissa Cousland. Your mother will make you stop hanging out with me, and then there’ll be no one to keep you out of trouble.”

He had made it plain on more than one occasion that he thought she was menace, and far too clever for her own good.

“Pshh.” Lis snorted. “As if you can. Besides.”

She swung her feet over the edge of the wall, stared past the toes of her very cute boots.

“After tonight, you’re the favorite anyway.”

Lord Andren had been sent home in such a tizzy that Lis and her mother were already planning a solid week of her father’s favorite meals as reward. Lis couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him so angry.

“You should have seen it,” she giggled. “’Kellen Gilmore is one of the finest young men I have ever had the honor to know!”

Lis dropped her voice into a righteous boom mean to approximate her father’s censure.

“And my daughter is a more discerning judge of character than I must be to have entertained you at my table for these past three days!”

She gestured broadly, hands flailing in a reasonable enough imitation of Bryce’s broad anger.

Kel laughed.

“He didn’t even let the man stay the night,” she continued, awestruck. “Went on and on about you training in Denerim next year.”

“Your father’s a good man,” Kel said, ducking his head, hiding behind the fall of his hair. “I will have to thank him.”

“He is,” she agreed. “But if you thank him, you’ll just insult him.”

He was blushing, and any other night Lis might have teased him for it, but not tonight. This evening had been just a little too real, a little too grown up for her.

Marriage…she shuddered.

“Do you think…?” No, best friend or not, maybe Kel wasn’t the best one for that topic. She made a note to speak to her mother.

“Lis.” He sounded old then. Not older, just old, and the near four years between them felt . “For what it’s worth, I don’t believe Teryn Cousland would ever force you to marry. Anyone.”

“It’s expected though,” Lis mumbled.

“It is, but…” he elbowed her. “You’re the spare right? Fergus can do the marrying and the babies.”

“And what?” Lis laughed. “They can pledge me to the Chantry?”

Kel’s face blanched theatrically. “Maker, preserve us. You’d make a terrible chantry sister.”

She grabbed the back panel of her long, split overskirt, dragging it up over her head and holding it like a wimple.

“Can you imagine?” Lis crowed. “Me, all passive and respectable and BORING.”

“Put your skirt down, you heathen.” He glared at her. She was more than covered, there were at least three layers of cotton and linen before she even chanced indecency. “It might do you some good at that.”

He snatched her skirt from her hands, dropped it back in place while she scowled at him.

“You can’t say ‘tits’ in the Chantry.”

“What about arse?” Lis fired back. “Cause I’m not going anywhere that I can’t tell you regularly how much of one you are.”

He kicked her foot, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to send her gasping toward the edge of the wall. He caught her shoulder well before there was danger, but Lis still swore at him.

“Language, Lady Cousland.”

She pinched him, hard enough that he yelped as she scooted back more securely on her perch.

“I’m going to put sandspurs in your bed for a month, Ser Gilmore.”

“Then I won’t speak to you,” he countered, unconcerned with her threat. “For an entire week.”

“Then I,” Lis snarked. “Will enjoy the blessed quiet.”

“Ha!” He didn’t believe her anymore than she did. “You would be bored and wreaking havoc on the entire keep in two days and your parents will be begging me to intervene.”

“Couslands don’t beg,” she returned primly. “We might bully though.”

“You can’t bully me.” She narrowed her eyes until he laughed. “At least not tonight. I’m your father’s favorite.”

“I’m sooo not going to miss you next year,” Lis declared, pinching him again.

“Keep that up,” he threatened. “And I’m going to ruffle your hair.”

“You know the hair is off limits.”

Kel snorted. “You can’t be that vain when you’re a chantry sister.”

“I can’t be a chantry sister if I throw you to your death either.”

She grabbed his arm, pulled and pushed amid both their chortles, as if she could actually make him go anywhere he didn’t want to.

“Murderers need the Maker most of all,” Kel gasped, tears of mirth standing in eyes more blue than grey.

“Wrong!” Lis hooted. “Betrayers, then murderers. Read a book, Ser Gilmore!”

“ _You_ read a book!”


	2. Farewells Not Forever

As a child, Elissa Cousland was too cute and then one summer, quite suddenly, she was too pretty. Her face became a little less round, and she finally grew—mostly—into her long, dark hair. Her eyes lost something of their wonder, gaze narrowed and shrewd. She was always dreaming, planning, thinking. She liked flouncy dresses and flowers, wore daisies and periwinkle in her hair, and when she wasn’t tormenting someone who needed it, she liked to sit in the garden and read or knit. She tried needlepoint for the two months it took her to master the fancier flowers, and before Piper Gilmore died, Lis embroidered a handkerchief for her.

She was, in so many ways, a proper fairytale princess. But, Maker’s breath, the girl had a killer right cross.

The day Kellen left for Denerim, she stood at the gate between her parents, dressed impeccably in his favorite color. The soft velvet was the color of holly leaves, and a vibrant contrast to the purple mottling her left eye. The other guy looked worse, she rather smugly told him when he asked, and Kel believed her, but that didn’t make it better.

She was eleven, with a mind sharper than most adults and a body rapidly leaving the safety of childhood behind, but she was still a child dammit. Too  young for “you’d be prettier if you smiled“ and “come here a minute, love” or “your hair is so lovely.” She dodged too many grabbing hands, too many appreciative glances from boys too stupid and men too old to be worth the time they thought they deserved from her.

He thanked the Maker every night that Lis knew better, but something more had to be done. He was tired of watching her fight battles she shouldn’t have to.

For four years now, Kel had quietly beaten the shit out of most of them after she gave them her own whatfor, but now he was leaving her. This morning, he would have chickened out, but there were shadows growing in her eyes, and he knew her well enough to guess where she was going. Lis was growing up, and she wouldn’t want him when she got there. It was, just as well. She stood on the cusp of an age where friendship with boys was difficult if not impossible. If he stuck around much longer, she would see him for the hopeless wreck that he was.

Fifteen years old, a knight in training, and his best friend in the world was an eleven year old girl.  There had to be something wrong with him. He was good enough with a sword, but better with a book, and his hands were too soft, his mind too prone to wandering. If he had been born to nobility and not taken on as a charity case, it wouldn’t have been so bad. He could have languished as the wastrel son, and at least his family wouldn’t have had to worry about him fathering a string of illegitimate whelps across Ferelden.

Kel had far too little interest in such things. Broken, the other boys called him. No dick, no stones. There were a dozen or more regular insults. They kept them in rotation. Some were more creative than others, but it all boiled down to the same thing. Kel didn’t care about sex, and somehow that made him less of a man.

And Lis? Well, Lis didn’t help. Their friendship wasn’t any more “normal” than the rest of his life.

“You’ll write me,” she ordered, handing him a small, wrapped parcel.

“Once a week,” Kel promised.

He knew how that would go, was—with a sick feeling in his gut—counting on it. They would write constantly at first, but then life would intervene and they would face the inevitable soft denouement. She wouldn’t have time for him, and he would fill the absence of her friendship with new faces, new disciplines.

“You’ll take up the blades?”

For his parting gift she had given him a carefully embroidered banner of Highever and a lap desk. He had given her a pair of long knives. He couldn’t stay with her, but he damn sure wasn’t leaving her undefended.

“Every day,” she nodded, and Kel met Bryce’s pale eyes over his daughter’s head.

The teryn nodded once, a brief sharp assent that more than comforted. They had talked the night before, and though Lis would kill him if she ever knew, she would not face the same harassment in the days ahead.

“I should go,” Kel said gruffly.

He was riding with a trade caravan, a group of entertainers and merchants whom Bryce knew well and trusted, a company that regularly celebrated First Day at the keep. Kel was excited to get underway, anxious to get enough distance between them that he wouldn’t embarrass himself by blubbering like a child.

“Your mother would be so proud of you.”

Lis stepped away and Eleanor lifted up on her toes, leaning in to place a kiss on his cheek. Her eyes shone too brightly in the early morning light and she patted his arm with one hand, holding the reins of his horse with other so that he could mount up. Three years he had been an orphan; in some ways he thought he had handled his mother’s death better than the teryna.

“We are too,” Bryce added. “Give Fergus our love.”

“I will.” There was that comfort. He and Fergus would foster and train at the same fort. At least for a time. “And we’ll see you all next summer,” Kel added.

Fifteen months and they would have their first short leave. Next summer seemed forever away, the time between stretching soft and bright with uncertain potential. It shouldn’t be so hard, he thought, gaze sliding fast and wavering over cool grey stone, glancing away from Lis’s questioning brow and the understanding in Bryce’s eyes. This wasn’t forever; this wasn’t goodbye, but somehow, this was so much harder that any of the farewells he had faced before. Harder than losing his father when he was ten, harder than watching his mother grieve, harder still than leaving behind everything he had known to come to Highever with her. Harder than listening to her fight for every breath until she lost. He wasn’t sure what sort of man that made him, but Highever was home.

That was the only certainty he had ever known.

“Easy.”

His horse pranced beneath him, and he wanted to kiss the brute for pulling him back from his thoughts. The warmblood bay was of indeterminate lineage. Kel had thought the gelding an appropriate enough match for him, and hadn’t quite kept the sardonic comment to himself upon the gifting.

_“He’s the pride of our stable,” Bryce had told him, laughing as Kel flushed at his own impulsive impertinence. “How’s that for appropriate?”_

“Be careful,” Lis said, stepping up beside him. She touched the gelding beneath the chin with gentle fingers and Kel wasn’t certain which of them she was speaking to. Carde quieted, leaning down into her touch. “Learn everything you can.”

“And you as well.”

She shrugged, a rough gesture more at home among street urchins and peasant boys. He wondered if she would ever grow into the two disparate halves of herself.

“Next time I see you,” she grinned at him, for a moment all bravado. “I’ll be better than you with those knives you left me.”

Kel laughed. “The next time I see you, I’ll have armor.”

“The next time you see me, you may need it.”


	3. Restless As A Young Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Kel gone, Lis seeks refuge at sea.

To her great annoyance, Elissa cried for a month after Kel left for Denerim. Home was never the same without him. She set upon her weapon’s training with a fury, but even the hours of drills, the sore, aching muscles, and nights of exhausted sleep couldn’t distract her from his absence. Every day there was something new to tell him, and every night the letter on her desk grew more and more unwieldy, until she realized that once a week simply would not do. Her letters became twice weekly, then daily, and when she found herself sitting in his empty room talking to the walls about her day, she decided enough was enough.

“I want to go to sea with Aunt Idaline,” she announced to her parents one mild spring morning.

Her lessons would be on hold for the summer—her comportment tutor had quit yesterday anyway, weak-spined creature—and her weapons training was going well, but there was no reason her mother’s sister couldn’t take up the task. Idaline had mostly trained Eleanor after all.

“You…?”

It wasn’t a new subject; her parents were well aware that the sea called to her Mac Eanraig blood. Still, they both looked surprised at her request.

“The letter came yesterday.” Lis held out a small, neatly folded square of parchment. “Aunt Idaline will be on the Storm Coast in two weeks. She thinks it’s high time I got my sea legs.”

Her parents exchanged an easily read glance and Lis waited, heart hammering in her throat. _Please, please, please,_ she prayed.  The refrain filled her head, became louder than her own heartbeat, and she nearly missed their acquiescence.

“It’s time enough,” Eleanor said with a smile. She reached for her husband’s hand, gave his fingers a gentle squeeze.

“I thought we would at least keep her home as long as we did Fergus.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention.” Eleanor met her daughter’s hopeful stare. “She’ll be twelve at the end of summer.”

Twelve. Eleanor had been the scourge of the Orlesian Navy by the time she was fifteen. Lis would be lucky to make first cabin boy.

Bryce sighed, heavily. “Alright, pup.”

“Really???” Lis wanted to shriek with gladness.

“Really. But there will be a list of conditions.”

“Anything!” Lis threw herself at both of them, nearly climbing her father’s taller frame like rigging to pepper kisses across his face. “Thank you!”

She reached out to grab her mother, dragging her into their affection and the three of them toppled to the floor of Bryce’s study. “Thank you so much!” Lis squealed. “I’ll make you both so proud.”

“Too late for that,” Bryce said gruffly, helping Lis right Eleanor before she could chide them both for their dramatics.  “Now… what are we going to do about your hair?”

*

In the end, they cut it, though not until the day of her departure. Lis cried, a silent silver tear with every snip of the shears as the weight of eleven years fell from her, each dark lock holding memories both treasured and abhorred. She hardly recognized herself as she stood before her mother’s mirror.

She supposed that was the point.

“Here,” Eleanor said, emerging from an expedition into the back of what had to be a magical wardrobe. She had been gone, Lis thought, for hours. “They may be a bit big, but you can roll up the cuffs.”

“Like a commoner,” Bryce teased from his spot on the bed. His job was done, though Eleanor was not pleased with it.

“Oh, good,” Lis sighed in relief. “I didn’t want to go looking like a lady.”

Eleanor rolled her eyes at both of them.

The stack of clothing could easily have been mistaken for unfinished bolts. Lis picked through a dozen pairs of plain linen trousers, until she found the smallest. They were baggy, with square patch pockets on the thighs, and a drawstring waistband. She was taller than her mother so the cuffs stopped just above her feet. Eleanor turned them up twice, baring Lis’s ankles.

“Trust me,” she said, and Lis grinned.

“Always, momma.”

The shirts were an array of pale, sun-bleached colors, cotton so fine, Lis had to wear a fitted, sleeveless shirt under them. She chose a week’s worth, selecting a tunic in pale sky blue for the day. The leather shoes were ugly but serviceable with rough soles that her mother insisted would keep her from sliding off the deck.

“You almost look like a proper pirate,” her father teased, stepping up behind her. He took the scarf from her hands, a childhood gift from Aunt Idaline from some long, distant shore. He ran his hands through the short locks of her hair, left it sticking up in spikes before he tied the wildly patterned silk over most of her hair. “You’re sure about this, pup?”

“Never been more sure of anything in my life,” Lis quipped and then could only be grateful that her father didn’t rightly dispute her claim. He knew the secrets of her heart. She trusted him to keep them, but knew he wouldn’t do so—not from her—if such silence was at her own expense.

“It’s only three months,” she added, turning to hug him. “You’ll hardly have time to miss me.”

His breath stirred her hair, the ends tickling her forehead.

“I already miss you.” He dropped a kiss on her temple.  “You’ll write to us when you’re in port.”

Lis laughed. “Of course I will. Between you and Kel and Fergus, the parchment trade will be assured single-handedly by the Cousland family this year.”

“You’re too grown up,” he complained, catching her by the arms and setting her back from him. He shook his head, glared past her at his wife. “I blame you.”

“You can blame whoever you like,” Eleanor replied mildly. “Doesn’t change the fact that she is half your fault.”

“I love you both so much,” Lis giggled. Love had always been easy between the four of them, then five with Kel. Her parents were supportive and affectionate, unflappable and unyielding when they needed to be. She was going to miss them.

“We love you too. Now, get some dirt on you, pup. Maybe a scar or two and you won’t be so pretty. That butchering you let someone give your hair helped.”

Eleanor snorted and Lis exchanged a grin with her father. He understood the burden of her beauty. Unlike her mother, Bryce didn’t expect Lis to have to live with it. Lis thought he had done a perfectly adequate job.

“Yes, ser.”

*

Three months turned into three years, and though Lis came home each winter, she was never more herself than when she was on the sea. That first summer was a revelation, the wind through her short hair a holy benediction. The sun scorched from her every anger, every fear. There was no room for ego upon the tides. The ocean didn’t care about titles or parents or what she looked like. The Deep waited for her as it did anyone else so brave or foolish enough to make their life on that mercurial plane.

Lady Cousland was, at best, Lis’s mother, and at worst, the ghost of who Lis might have once grown to be. On board _the Bard_ she was only Captain Idaline’s promising new recruit. Lis No Last Name, a girl with hands quick on the ropes and quicker on her blades. She was miserable the first four months as her body adjusted to the work, as her head learned the ebbs and flows of sea and storm, but once her body recalled the memories of her ancestors, Lis stood tall against the spray, feet and arms bare, skin weathered bright and peeling, and there was nothing and no one who dared ask anything more of her than she was willing to give.

“Your brother is getting married I hear.”

Lis didn’t look up as Idaline joined her. They had made port in Jader two days ago, exchanging a load of exotic fruits and spices for plainer fare. Lis didn’t know what the Rivaini found so interesting about Ferelden textiles, but she was glad. The pay was good, and the trip was one of her favorites.

“Finally found someone willing to put up with him,” Lis smiled. “Oriana. Seems a nice girl.”

 _Girl_ , as if the young woman wasn’t six years Lis’s senior.

“You know her?” Idaline asked, settling on the dock beside her.

The night was broad and warm. The sky spread deep as velvet and studded with crystal light.  Lis missed her parents often, but she wouldn’t trade the time with her aunt for anything. She had learned so much about her mother’s family, and was proud to count herself Mac Eanraig as much as Cousland. In the three years that she had sailed with her, Idaline had become Lis’s greatest mentor, and no small confidant. They were alike, Lis thought, watching moonlight shift on the face of the water. Same dark hair and brooding eyes. Same utter annoyance at a world that would probably never be ready for the fire they carried in their hearts.

“Lis?”

“Sorry.” She cracked a pair of walnuts in her palm, sifted shreds of hull between her fingers before offering her aunt some of the meat and casting the shells into the bay. “Leagues away tonight, I guess.”

She was nervous about going home. This would be the first since they both left Castle Cousland that she and Kel would return to the keep at the same time. They still wrote regularly, but letters were an easy intimacy. She did not know what to expect of seeing him face to face.

“Quite the spread you have here.” Idaline plucked a cube of cheese from the bowl between them.

“Cheddar from South Reach,” Lis shrugged. “It’s my favorite. Cheesemonger said it came in yesterday.”

There was nothing better than walnuts, cheddar, and Hinterland apples. Lis had been snacking on and off all day watching the ships come and go. They ate in silence for a moment before she remembered her aunt’s question.

“I don’t know her, but she wrote me a few months ago. Seems she also knows Kel. Between him and Fergus, my fearsome reputation must have preceded me. She wanted to make sure I approved the match.”

Idaline laughed. The corners of her eyes crinkled, face falling into familiar lines of mirth. Idaline was older than Lis’s mother by five years, but a life outdoors had left its mark on her. Lis could only hope to wear her own adventures on her face with such unabashed bluster.

“You are a Mac Eanraig through and through, girl. I can’t tell you what a joy it’s been having you around. My father would have loved you.” 

Idaline shook her head, smile turning just a little sad as it always did when she mentioned the Storm Giant. Lis’s grandfather cast a broad shadow. She wished he had known him.

“You’ll be needing a proper dress, won’t you?”

Lis grinned. “Something befitting a world traveler like myself?”

“I like the way you think, girl. There’s a shop in town I think will do the job. We’ll go tomorrow. When it’s done, I’ll deliver you to Highever myself, wish the happy couple well.”

“And charge my parents for the trouble.”

“That’s my girl,” Idaline clapped her on the back proudly. “They’ll owe me for dresses anyway.”

“I have my own money,” Lis reminded with an exasperated laugh. She drew pay just like anyone else on board _the Bard_.

“Still saving for your own ship?” 

“You know it.”

“Then you’ll keep it, sailor.” Idaline narrowed her eyes, daring her to argue.”You’ll make first mate in another few years if you keep going like you are. Could have your own ship before your twentieth.”

Lis’s heart leapt, and she bit back an incredulous “ _really?_ ” She knew better than to doubt her captain. Instead, she snapped a smart salute that always made Idaline roll her eyes. “Yes, ser!”

“If I don’t drown you for your insolence.”

It was a regular threat. Lis grinned. “Yes, Captain.”

The meekness in her tone wasn’t fooling either of them.


	4. Such a Tide as Moving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *the chapter titles in this work have all been taken from some of my favorite nautical poems. This is from Tennyson's Crossing the Bar.

 

Castle Cousland was turned out for Summerday, and Kel thought that all of Highever must surely be there. Flowers festooned archways, spread across tables and mantles, ribbon garlands coiled around the rails every staircase, white and lavender and peach, Oriana’s chosen wedding colors. Fergus had—in what Kel knew to be a desperate bid between the three—chosen white for his wedding garb and as was their duty as Fergus’s attendants, Kel and Bryce were wearing the same. The pre-ceremony attire wasn’t so bad. The day was hot and humid, and somehow Fergus had gotten Oriana and Eleanor to approve loose linen trousers and tunics. There was embroidery around the wide square collars and cuffs, a tone on tone white that shimmered in the sunlight, but all in all it wasn’t nearly as bad as the laces and buckles and quilted miseries that would await them later in the evening.

“Stop pacing,” Kel ordered, more from habit than out of any belief that Fergus would heed him. Lis was two days late, and though a runner had come the morning before assuring them of her attendance, Fergus had done nothing but worry and fret before and after.

“If she makes us postpone the wedding, I will kill her.”

“She’ll be here,” Kel snorted, gaze fixed upon the horizon. “Though if you think to postpone the wedding and blame her for it, I’m afraid it’ll be your back from which I’ll be pulling a knife, not hers.”

Beloved sister or not, moving the wedding due to her possible absence was, in Kel’s opinion, a little extreme. He was fairly certain Eleanor and Oriana would agree.

Fergus stared at him until he sighed.

“She’ll be here,” Kel assured him. He pointed east. “I’ll wager that storm of dust is none other.”

“Should we ride out to meet her?”

The activity would do them both good, but the rest of the family would see the act as nothing more than the desertion that it was.

“Better not,” Kel sighed. “We would have to change clothes or get these dirty.”

“Either of which,” Fergus huffed in resignation. “Would only earn us the stocks.”

“At the least.”

He watched Fergus pace down the battlements again. Maker’s breath, the man was more nervous about seeing his kid sister than marrying his bride!

“Fergus!” Kel hurried after him.

“What?”

“She wouldn’t let you down.”

Fergus glared at him. “She fourteen,” he said, before voicing a common enough worry between the two of them. “She’s been at sea for most of the past three years.”

“I know.” Kel shook his head. “But she writes you nearly as often as she does me, yes?”

His friend nodded, but there was no certainty in his gaze. He turned to watch the dust gather, heavier and heavier in the violet distance.

“Then you know she’s still Lis,” Kel said.

From her letters, she seemed stronger, happier, but there was nothing in their regular correspondence to suggest that Elissa Cousland was anything but the devoted daughter, sister, and friend that she had always been. So what if she sometimes fancied herself a pirate?

“People grow.” Fergus glanced away. “People change. Girls most of all.”

“Not Lis.”

“It’s been three years,” Fergus hissed.

Like Kel could forget how long it had been since since either of them had seen more than the last half-finished portrait of the young lady Cousland. The painting hung in Bryce’s study, charcoal lines filled in with warm color at face and neck. Her skin was brighter, redder than it should have been, but only her eyes were complete. The artist had rendered Lis’s stare was as direct as it had ever been—if a bit sharper—and more green than tan, suggesting that her unfinished dress was something dark and sea-hued.

“She cut her hair and ran off to sea!” he continued with familiar ire.

It was a conversation they’d had more than once.

“You didn’t expect her to fight that mane on the open ocean, did you?” Kel shrugged.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

No, it wasn’t what he meant. Fergus adored his kid sister, but he had grown too accustomed to the high-born ladies of Denerim. Soft gowns and softer voices. Oriana spoiled him; she let him protect her, coddle her, even though she didn’t need either.

“Not everyone wants hearth and home, Fergus.” Kel ran one hand through his hair, squinted up at the angle of the bright summer sun. There was still plenty of time. “She’s not just Cousland.”

“Well, I am,” Fergus grumped. “And you are.”

Kel laughed. No point in arguing that.

“And I’m glad to be home.” Fergus finally turned from his uneasy watch. “Another year and you’ll join me.”

“Maker willing.” He let his friend take his arm and the two began a companionable walk toward the stairs.

“I’m sure in another few years Markus will be ready to surrender the guardhouse to you.”

“Markus,” Kel snorted. “Will surrender that guardhouse to me only with his last breath. But he’s not a man I’ll mind serving under.”

“It’ll be good to have you home, Ser Gilmore.”

“It’s already good to be home,” Kel corrected. “But it’ll be better to be home for good.”

*

“Home, sweet home,” Lis sighed as they drew near the keep.

“You could say that with a bit less sarcasm,” Idaline said drolly, earning a round of laughter from the rest of their company.

They had ridden out with a band of six. Idaline, her first mate Lara, Nik, the best cutlass on the Bard, and a pair of cabin kids eager to see a proper castle. There was nothing proper about Castle Cousland, not today. Music soared above the battlements, pipes and lutes and lap harps, notes warm and liquid beneath the summer sun. The air was filled with the scents of roasting meats and vegetables, sweet rolls and cakes. The grey stones were all but lost beneath Summerday decorations. Lis didn’t think she had ever seen the keep wearing so many ribbons and flowers.

“You wait,” Lis snickered. “You’ll all be wearing flower crowns before the midday meal.”

Idaline laughed. “Is that why you refused the matching headscarves?”

Lis’s dresses, a pair of fancy watercolor silks and two traveling suits in sun-washed linen, had of course, come with hats and scarves, but she had known the moment she arrived, there would be a wreath of her favorite wild flowers waiting for her.

“My lady!”

She wasn’t expecting Nan to be first to greet her, but Lis wasn’t complaining. The intractable cook was a rare match for Eleanor Cousland, and she insisted Lis was the bane of her existence. Judging from the softness in her eyes, the time Lis had been away had made her sentimental.

“Nan!”

She had a moment to reach down, to grab Nan’s hand with hers and squeeze once in greeting and then the courtyard—already bustling with activity and revelry—seemed to burst forward, a great spurt of life as sudden as summer upon the headland. Lis found herself surrounded by smiling, eager faces, most of whom she knew well enough, but too many whom she didn’t. A pair of stablelads came forward to take their horses and suddenly Lis was on the ground, feet rooted to the stones assailed with hellos, hugs, kisses, and hands grasping in welcome.

Lis took a slow breath, trying to ignore the hammering of her heart, the sick, slick tip of her vision. It always took her days to get used to being back on land, being crowded only made it worse.

“Clear a path!”

She would know Kel’s voice anywhere, though the tone of unquestionable command was new. The masses parted—not that they needed to, Kel and Fergus stood head and shoulders above most of them. Lis let her hands fall from the hidden hilts of her blades, took another fortifying breath, hoped that her profound relief didn’t show on her face.

“Oh! Look at you!”

She couldn’t have even if she had wanted to. Fergus scooped her up in a bear hug, cracking three vertebra as he spun her in a wide, dizzying circle. Lis laughed, thudding harmless fists on his back and swearing at him under her breath.

“You’re grown!” Fergus tossed her up, caught her with his arms behind her thighs and held her high above him. “Oh, pup! I can’t believe how much you’ve grown.”

“I haven’t grown enough,” Lis retorted, kicking him lightly in the shin. “If you can toss me around like this.”

She smacked him on one broad shoulder, then kissed him soundly on both cheeks. Fergus ignored her, shooting a mock glare at their aunt.

“Are you not feeding her on that ship of yours?” he demanded, jostling Lis up and down as if taking her measure. “She’s thin as a rail.”

“That rail,” Idaline replied, leaning in to kiss her nephew on the cheek. “Is strong as an ox and it’s damn near impossible to keep her stomach satisfied.“

“Do you eat like a horse?” Fergus asked merrily.

“I try.”

Kel snorted and Lis’s head finally—finally—stopped spinning long enough for her to get a proper look at him.

Three years were a lifetime.

He was…well, he didn’t seem to have been having any trouble finding enough to eat. Maker’s breath, he was huge. Well, objectively she knew he wasn’t, but when he had left Kel had only been a head taller than she was and only a little broader. Somehow—probably in what Idaline liked to call the utter self-centeredness of youth—Lis had expected to have reached him. She had shot up five inches in the past three years, and she supposed it made sense that he would have grown too.

“We’ll fatten you up now that you’re home,” Fergus said, spinning her again. “You can’t turn a corner without running into a feast.”

“Wouldn’t be Summerday without too much food.” Lis shook her head, dropped another smacking kiss on her brother’s lips. She clapped her hands lightly onto his grinning cheeks, held him still so that she could search his gaze for the happiness that seemed to pour out of him. “I can’t believe you’re getting married!”

“Never thought I’d find a woman to take me huh?”

“Never, ever,” Lis snickered. “Now put me down so that I can kiss Kel. You’re not the only one I’ve missed.”

Fergus passed her over as if she weighed nothing. Her feet hadn’t a chance to touch the ground, and then there he was, eyes a storm of summer blue, smile warm and familiar amid new and sharper angles. He was stronger than she remembered, not a breath lost to the weight of her, grip a lighter mimic of Fergus’s, chest wider, and hard against hers.

“I have missed you,” he said, spinning her no differently than her brother had.

“You’ve been bored,” Lis accused tartly. “Denerim’s too civilized for you.”

“There’s nothing civilized about you,” Kel chuckled, giving her a jolly shake. Lis thumped him on the bicep, tried not to marvel at heavy muscle beneath the soft sleeve of his tunic. Kel, she told herself firmly. This was Kel. “The sea agrees with you.”

“Yes, it does,” Lis replied, leaning in to drop a kiss on both of his cheeks.

Kel kissed her back, a responding peck to each cheek, lips brushing the new scar on her left while his gaze roamed over her face as if he were learning her again too.

“You look a proper pirate,” Kel smirked. “The scars suit you.”

“And you look near grown,” Lis sniped cheerfully.

“Eighteen end of Solace,” Fergus called, as if they both didn’t know. “And a knight too.”

“You’ll be there for the ceremony,” Kel asked, settling her into an embrace that might have been comfortable if--well, if wasn’t something she was going to let herself think about.

“Of course I will!” She watched his smile turn to something near blinding with gladness. “There isn’t a current that could keep me away!”

She leaned in to kiss him again, a smooch no different than the one she had just bestowed on Fergus except that all at once it was. Lis froze and Kel pulled back, a frown marring the space between his brows.

“I’m sorry,” he said quckly, and in his arms there was a cool remove.

“What?” She scowled. “What have you to be sorry for?”

She glared at him, daring him to answer her. She leaned in before he could, pressed a kiss to the query of his lips.

“It’s fine,” she said too fast, too bright, arms going rigid between them as she tried to decide if she should push herself away.

He knew. The certainty was cold and black as the Deep. Of course he knew. Their letters had formed too great a transparency between them. When she was a kid, he had always known the moment she did whatever she felt or thought, and she had spent the last three years sharing her innermost wonderings with him, lulled into a false sense of security by time and distance, by his honest reciprocation. She may as well have stood before him naked, Lis thought, then immediately blushed at the very idea.

“Lis?”

Her name was a murmur of concern, so soft that had they not been so close, she might have missed it beneath the surrounding din. His eyes spun grey with shadows, and for a moment only the concern in their depths were familiar.

“I--” Lis swallowed hard, dangled her feet a bit for emphasis. “We’re going to wrinkle my dress.”

“Can’t have that.” He returned her feet to the courtyard stones, reached up to tug one short lock of her hair. “You have to pass for a lady today or something, right?”

She wrinkled her nose, and tried to summon something of her usual bravado, for the first time feeling it a lie.

“Rubbish isn’t it?”


	5. Picked Him For Her Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title chosen from Yeats' poem A Man Young and Old, iii The Mermaid
> 
> A mermaid found a swimming lad,  
> Picked him for her own,  
> Pressed her body to his body,  
> Laughed; and plunging down  
> Forgot in cruel happiness  
> That even lovers drown.

“Someone needs to go wake up Lis,” Eleanor announced near the end of breakfast.

Her smile was not quite hidden by a yellow floral teacup, but they all knew it was there, silently daring, subtly mocking the resulting chorus of panicked “not it!”s. Oriana’s face scrunched prettily in confusion. She was unfamiliar with the very necessary tradition, but she still beat Kel, voice ringing out cheerily. The woman was fast, quick witted enough to keep up with Fergus, smart enough to choose her battles with his mother with care. In the months since the wedding she had fit into their family perfectly. Even if she hadn’t gotten her denial in before him, Kel wouldn’t have sentenced one so young and innocent to such a grisly task. He was a knight after all, honor must be upheld.

“Short stick is yours,” Fergus crowed from across the table.

It was Kel’s first full day home—Lis had gotten in just two before him—and already he felt as if they had never left.

“Any last words, my friend?” Fergus asked. “I’ll wager she keeps more than that little penknife of father’s under her pillow now.”

Oriana looked so scandalized that Eleanor didn’t quite cover her laugh. The teryna coughed, shooting her husband a withering glare when he leaned over to rap her on the back

“You wager correctly,” Bryce warned with no small amount of pride in his tone. “There isn’t a servant in the keep who’ll brave her now.”

Kel felt his heart lurch. “She attacked one of the servants?”  That simply wouldn’t do.  “I had no idea she had become so...” He floundered for an appropriate word. “Intractable.”

Fergus snorted. “She’s the same amount of ‘intractable’ she always was, she’s just a better fighter now.”

Kel frowned. He understood the need to be on alert while she was at sea, but this was Highever.  

“She hasn’t attacked anyone,” Bryce shook his head. “Well, except for Fergus.”

“Damn fast hands,” Fergus added with a chuckle. “Took me down before her eyes were open.”

“Try not to sound too pleased about being taken down by a fourteen year old girl.”

“Nearly fifteen!” Fergus exclaimed.

“That.” Kel rolled his eyes. “Does not make it better. “

“And damn right, I’m proud.”

Kel smiled. “Well, fear not!”

He finished his eggs in two bites, and leapt from the table.

“I shall slay this mighty dragon.” He gestured dramatically, snagging a small dark boule and an apple from the platter closest to him, brandishing them with a flourish.

“Her head or yours!” Fergus shouted in encouragement, fist in the air.

“Really you two,” Eleanor admonished. Anyone who didn’t know her would have thought she was serious.

“Apologies, my lady.” Kel bowed with great dignity and Oriana smothered a dainty giggle behind her napkin.  “I shall return.”

He was halfway across the room when Bryce called suddenly. “Don’t forget the cheddar!”

Kel spun back toward the table, a look of gratitude on his face.

“Your wisdom has saved me, ser.”

He caught the tossed wedge of cheese, held it over his heart and bowed low again. His antics were rewarded with a chorus of laughter.

“It’s good to have you home, Kellen.” Eleanor lifted her teacup in a toast, sunlight shining through delicate porcelain.

“It’s good to be home,” Kel replied. “Even if you lot are sending me to my doom.”

“We would be lost without you!” Fergus called after him.

“Yes, you would.”

Kel strode through the keep humming, a merry tune his mother had favored, or maybe it was his father, he couldn’t quite recall. All he knew was that when he was happy—truly and utterly happy—the song played over and over in his head.  He was home, and those words hadn’t stopped repeating either, a joyous litany filled with gratitude. He wasn’t much for prayers, but he had found himself lifting them to the Maker almost hourly, nothing so grand as a chantry sister might muster in pretty prose, but earnest thanks for the turn of his life, and that everyone he loved was finally all gathered at home.

He knocked at Lis’s door. Two solid kicks to the bottom, a perfunctory curtesy only. He knew she wouldn’t hear him, just as he knew she wouldn’t answer when he opened the door, calling softly across the dark room, before he let himself in. Heavy curtains were pulled across the windows, intrepid slants of light losing courage at the foot of her bed. The brocade hangings were only partially drawn, umber shadows and bright white cotton a tangle of contrasts. Kel was unsurprised to see her foot first, sole scarred and stained dark with who knew what, the leg attached a stretch of sunburnt skin. Three years and she hadn’t tanned, just reddened and blistered and reddened some more. Her knee was paler, mostly covered by thick scab, peeling on the edges to reveal light pink skin.

“Elissa Breanne Cousland!”

He couldn’t stop his bellow of shock, and it was just as well. She startled awake, hands on an impressive pair of blades as she rolled up to sit. Kel stared at the floor.

“Are you naked?” he shouted.

“What the fuck, Kel?” Lis snarled, scrubbing at her eyes with the heel of one fist, knife waving. “Of course I’m not naked.”

He dared a glance at the bed, and she glared at him, shoving one of her knives back under her pillow and tugging her tunic into some pretense of modesty he no longer believed she possessed.  Her hair was a mass of dark, disheveled spikes, eyes bleary, and Kel knew he had about ten heartbeats to get some food in her hands or she would start threatening future generations of Gilmores, maybe all of Highever.

“I saw naked ass.” He threw the round of bread at her and she caught it on the tip of one dagger.

“So throw a sovereign at it.” She shook her head in exasperation, ripping off hunk of bread.

“That ass is fourteen years old,” Kel snapped. “ _No one_ better be throwing a sovereign or anything else at it.”

“If it was an eighteen year old ass,” Lis snorted. “Would that make it better?”

Her face was still drawn into grumpy lines, hazel eyes were almost tawny, bright with challenge above freckled cheeks.  The tunic she slept in—some sleeveless thing with a too wide neck and no small number of colorful patches scattered in haphazard disarray—was two sizes too big and hung off of one shoulder, pooling in her lap and revealing way too much thigh. There was a jagged white scar running high on her right leg disappearing under worn linen.

“Maker’s breath! We are not talking about your ass.”

He hurled the apple at her, harder than he meant to, and she snatched it from the air. Fergus was right. Damn, she was fast.

“What happened to your leg?”

*

Well, Lis thought, brain far too fuzzy for this sort of annoyance. She had been awake all of two minutes, and already he was yelling at her.  Why in the Maker’s name was he yelling at her? She rubbed her eyes, stared through sleep-crusted lashes at the towering, glowering figure at the foot of her bed. Not quite the fantasies she had too often entertained in the months since Fergus’s wedding, but she supposed it would do.

“Good morning to you too.” Her jaw cracked on a broad yawn. “When did you get in?”

“Late last night.” They were the first words he’d said that made sense. Maker’s breath, had he yelled at her about her ass?

“You should have woken me.”

It was too damn good to see him, standing in her bedroom looking twice as grumpy as she usually was first thing in the morning.

“Because we see how well that’s working for us this morning,” he returned, just a touch sharply.

Lis rubbed her eyes again, stared through the shadows at her bed. Bread, apple…She was still holding one of her knives.

“There better be cheese where both of these came from,” she teased, trying to set something of the day to rights.

“Yes, there’s cheese,” Kel muttered.

He approached the bed as if it had suddenly become gallows, staring her as if she had two heads and one of them was venomous. Lis watched him carefully.

“Your leg, Lis?”

He didn’t seem to care now that she was half-naked so that was a plus, but he looked far more worried than he had any reason to be.

“This?” She pointed her knife at the scar.

“No,” Kel said drily. “The other neverending scar.”

Lis snickered, broke the round of bread into two rough halves before tossing one back to him.

“Cutlass, summer before last. Took two dozen stitches,” she said with no small amount of pride. His eyes were wide in the dusky light. “Goes up toward my hip, but you can see most of it.”

Not that he was looking. Kel’s gaze was fastened on her bedroom carpet. She wasn’t certain what had caused his persisting discomfort, but if the sick twist in her stomach was any indicator, it had started with her partial nudity, and only grown worse when he saw her scars. She told herself she was wrong, then she told herself she didn’t care if she wasn’t. The problem—if there was one—was his. It wasn’t as if they’d never seen each other half-naked. He and Fergus had spent too many summers shirtless, and Maker knew she had a habit of hiking up skirts to fjord creeks or wade in ponds.

“It’s not so bad as all that.” Lis pressed on, trying for the light banter that had never failed them. She balanced her bread on her knee and began cutting the apple he had thrown her into neat quarters. “And not even the worst one.“

She had written to him of skirmishes. Perhaps not the exacts, but enough that he should have known she wasn’t out attending balls and having tea on the Waking Sea.

“You should see—“ She reached for the hem of her tunic then stopped. “Well, I’ll show you that one when I have my pants back on.”

She laughed; he didn’t. Nor did he blush. But still, he didn’t look happy and Lis suddenly found herself feeling squirmy. Kel averted his eyes too often for him not to care about what she was and wasn’t wearing. Damn him, Lis thought. Damn him for thinking that he was just like the rest.

“I was laid up for two weeks.” She elbowed herself low on the ribs. “I was certain the captain was going to kill me if I made it.”

“The captain? You mean your aunt?”

Lis forced a grin, trying to remember where she had left her trousers. “Yeah, scared her half to death. She threatened to throw me in the drink.”

“She didn’t!” He seemed genuinely scandalized, and Lis wanted to smile, but the expression was lost, as sour as the breakfast she couldn’t bring herself to eat.

“Do your parents know how many times you’ve nearly died?” he demanded.

“Nearly… what?” Lis laughed. “Andraste’s knickers, Kel. Have you forgotten who my mother is? If I tell her how careless I was, I’ll just get in trouble all over again. She’d have me training night and day for month.”

He’d lost his mind, Lis realized. Three and half years in Denerim and he was completely addled.

“I’m sorry.” He finally looked up at her and whatever he saw must have reassured him. “Here, cheese.”

He thrust the cheddar toward her, and Lis took it with a smile.

“If we’re done with that then…” She nodded to the bed. “Sit. Have breakfast with me, catch me up on everything I’ve missed since Summerday.”

He sat, but not comfortably, feet on the floor, body turned mostly from her.  Lis stared at the curve of his back, picking at her food, splitting it between them and pretending to eat until all she could hear was Aunt Idaline’s warnings about girls and boys, men and women, and how time built walls between all of them.

“No training scars for you?” Lis asked when the silence had stretched too long.

She bumped his shoulder with one hand, held out a wedge of apple.

“Nothing like those.” He accepted the fruit too warily. “And nothing I’m going to let you throw a sovereign at.”

“One day then,” Lis shrugged.

“Lis…” She could hear the reprimand in his voice, and her spine stiffened.

“This is the part where you tell me I’m not behaving properly for a girl my age isn’t it?” she asked softly.

“This is the part where I tell you that you can’t flirt with me,” he said soberly, erecting a thousand barriers between them and breaking her heart.

*

“Flirt?”

He couldn’t see her face, but he felt her move, heard the heavy thud of her knife as it hit the bed. She scrambled past him to the floor, a storm of fury.

“Flirt?” she repeated indignantly. “As if I’m…”

Her voice rose and Kel realized too late that he had chosen the very worst word.

“As if I’m what…” Lis snapped. “Some vapid young noblewoman with a crush on the strapping knight?”

She kicked him in the shin—hard—stood so close to him that he had no choice but to look up at her.  Not that he did. He stared at the tops of her feet, watching one tap impatiently against the dark paisley carpet.

“You’ve a lot of nerve, Kellen Gilmore.”

“What was I supposed—?” he began more sternly than he meant to, thoughts a tumult as he tried to think of what to say.

Lis cut him off with another kick.

“I’m heading out tomorrow.”

She hurled the words at him. 

“You’re what?” 

He blinked up at her then, and the retreat in her eyes cut deep. She took a step back, drew in a long, slow breath. When she let it out on a sigh, the sound was tired and far beyond her years. 

“You just got home! _I_ just got home.”

“I did,” she agreed quietly. “You did.”

“Then…” he frowned. “I don’t understand.”

She smiled, something soft and sad. “I know you don’t.”

“Lis—“

“I love you,” she blurted, hands on her hips, scowl on her a face.

Kel smiled. “I love you too.” It was an easy truth to give.

“No.” She shook her head. “I _love_ you. I think maybe I always did and only now I’m growing into it.”

She shrugged. “But you aren’t. I knew that too. I just…I was a fool to think it wouldn’t matter.”

“Lis—“

“Don’t.” She stared past his shoulder, lips pressed together into a hard line. “Don’t tell me I’m too young. Don’t tell me you don’t, can’t, won’t return my feelings. I’m not asking you to. I just…can’t lurk around this castle all winter pining for you.”

“Lis—!“

She was too young for this conversation, and Maker, help him, he didn’t think he was old enough for it either. He had learned to reject with at least a modicum of grace in Denerim, but this was never a conversation Kel had expected to have with Lis. And damn her for not letting him get a single practiced word out.

“You needed to know is all. We don’t have secrets.”

“No,” Kel finally managed. “We don’t.You’re…”

“And don’t insult me,” she held up one hand, reading him far too easily. “I’m not a child, and if you tell me that I will outgrow what I’m feeling, I will punch you.”

She took another step back, snagging a pair of trousers from the floor with her toes and tossing them up to catch with one hand.

“You’re my best friend,” she continued, as if she hadn’t just ripped out his heart and wasn’t trying to hand it back to him. “I just thought you should know.”

She stepped into her trousers, pulled them up ruthlessly and stomped away. Kel could do nothing but follow.

“Lis, please.”

She spun back toward him, chin lifting obstinately. “Please what?”

He didn’t have an answer for her. Didn’t know where to start. _Please, don’t…_ but don’t what? Don’t love him, don’t tell him, don’t stand there looking at him as if he were the answer to a question she shouldn’t even be asking yet.

“Don’t leave.”

“What?”

Kel ran one hand through his hair. “I—“

She raised one brow and he bit off whatever he might have said.

“Look.” Kel rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand, tried to press back his consternation with thumb and forefinger.  “We don’t…we don’t have to talk about…”

“My feelings?” She met his eyes boldly and Kel wondered how long before she stopped, before her innocence was gone and life taught her sliding glances and heart’s doubts, and he hated himself for being the one who hurt her first. Who didn’t love her as she deserved.

“Your feelings.” He nodded. “But Lis…”

He took a gulp of air, heart pounding, praying he was saying the right thing. “Don’t run away. We all miss you. We get so little time with you, we hardly know you anymore.”

“You know me better than anyone!” She shouted, thumping him on the chest.

“On paper!” Kel hollered. “Lis!”

Dammit, he wanted to shake her. “You can’t just drop something like this on me and runaway!”

“Why not?” She was daring him; he could see it in her eyes. “It’s not like anything can come of it.”

“Well of course nothing can come of it!” Maker’s breath, he couldn’t keep up with her.  “You’re fourteen, I’m eighteen, and even if I wasn’t broken, those four years are a lifetime right now.”

“I know that!” There were tears in her eyes and he believed her, but that still didn’t tell Kel what he should _do_.

“So what?” he asked in frustration. “You just intend to punish me for it? Punish all of us?”

“What?”  She stared at him, voice falling soft as a whisper and Kel stared back trying to tell her a thousand things without words.

“I—“ He paced to the window, drawing the curtains back so that they both hissed in the sudden flood of light. “I don’t know, Lis. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say or do. I know that you have nearly died twice in the last three years—“

“At least,” she interrupted cheekily.

“And I know that a thousand letters aren’t the same as standing in the same room wanting to strangle you, so just…don’t leave early.”

“It’s going to be awkward,” she told him, and if he believed anything with certainty, he believed that.

“No more awkward than me walking in here this morning to see you bare-assed,” he retorted.

“I wasn’t bare-assed,” Lis smirked. “My ass was bare. There’s a difference.”


	6. So Quite a New Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, long chapter, but it's done! Title taken from i like my body when it is with your-ee cummings and one of my favorites.

“You sure about this, seapup?”

Idaline slipped her arm around Lis’s waist, tugged her close to her side as _the Bard_ cut through a particularly nasty swell. They swayed together with the ship, feet firm where there was no steady, only the roll and pitch of the Waking Sea. The nickname made Lis smile, a variation of the one her father had given her and her mother’s illustrious title. It suited her, even if she was probably—finally—too old for ‘pup.’ Idaline and her father weren’t of one mind about much, but they were on that.

“It’s time,” Lis said, no small amount of longing beneath her certainty.

The wind shrieked, brisk and cold from the south, teasing long, fine wisps of dark hair from the coil of heavy braids around her head. She had grown it out over the past year, a fit of vanity, a concession unasked for to her mother. Lis might never be the proper lady of Highever, but she could dress the part well enough, refrain from drawing her knives on people who annoyed her. She was dressed for her homecoming today, long wool coat, fine tall boots. Holly green and gleaming Antivan leather, silver buttons shining. She hadn’t bothered with a dress—she would be riding to the keep as soon as they docked—but the leggings and vest were heavy suede from Nevarra, the flowing silk tunic a gift from friends in Treviso. All finery more than enviable of any lord or lady of the Waking Sea.

“If he breaks your heart…” Idaline shrugged, as if she were commenting on the price of cotton or the color of Lis’s shoes. “They’ll never find his body.”

Lis smiled, wrapped one arm around her aunt’s shoulders and squeezed in a hug.

“He’s not going to break my heart,” she assured her. “Though I worry I might hurt his.”

She didn’t want to push him, never had wanted to ask for more than he was willing to give her, but she couldn’t ask for anything at all until he saw her as a woman grown. And maybe he wouldn’t. To Fergus and her father, she would always be a pup, unpredictable, a little aggressive. Not enough bark and too many teeth, but loved and coddled nonetheless. Kel…well, he was trying, and Maker knew she understood the difficulty. In too many ways, Lis was the elder. Life at sea was independence and experience and if by some miracle she had managed to shelter herself in certain ways, Lis hadn’t been a child since she first set foot on _the Bard._

“I don’t believe you could,” Idaline mused, in a rare show of seriousness. “That boy loves you. More than any of us, I’d wager, though if you tell your father I said that, I’ll deny it.”

Lis smiled. “There are many faces of love,” she worried. “We may not present the same.”

She had not brought up her feelings for him again, not once in the four years since her confession, and to his credit, Kel had not treated her any differently on her—thrice yearly now that he was home—trips back to Highever. Lis had waited, hoarding their friendship and clinging to the hope that one day she would stand before him and he would see her for the woman she was, not the girl she had been.

“He loves you,” Idaline insisted. “He’s just afraid, though of what I can’t say. I didn’t read all your letters.”

“You--!” Lis turned to glare at her, mouth opening and closing, breath caught between laughter and a shout of outrage.

“How many times have I caught you snooping?” her aunt retorted, mischief in her blue eyes.

“Too many,” Lis admitted, chuckling. She elbowed Idaline in the ribs. “You could have told me. Saved me all this uncertainty.”

“You needed to find your certainty for yourself,” Idaline returned. “And now that you have, I’ll tell you what you already know. Those letters of yours? Those are love letters, girl. Have been for two years now.”

“Two years?”

“Since your seventeenth birthday,” Idaline said, holding fast to Lis’s waist as the deck suddenly pitched beneath them, Lis’s heart right along with it.

“They are—“ she started to deny it, but the lie turned to flotsam, drifted away in the crisp salt air. “They weren’t meant to be.”

“Weren’t they?” Idaline asked. “You’ve poured your hearts out to each other. There’s none you trust more with the darkest parts of yourselves, and now, you’re going home to him. If that’s not love…”

“It could be ‘youthful infatuation’,” Lis teased, quoting one of Kel’s first letters after she confessed her feelings to him.

“Even _he_ doesn’t believe that now,” Idaline snorted. “And if he does…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lis grinned. “Into the drink with him.”

“That’s right.”

Idaline’s fingers tightened against her side, pulling her close in something of a hug. “Going to miss you,” she added gruffly. “You’re the finest first mate I ever had.”

“Going to miss you too,” Lis smiled. “Even if you’ve gone and gotten all sentimental in your old age.”

“Ungrateful wretch! I have not!”

The crew scattered at the first bit of name calling, remained out of harms reach at the scuffle that followed as the pair feigned trying to throw the other one overboard. It was a ridiculous habit, and they were a ridiculous pair, but they had worked well together, and Idaline had taught her everything she could ever want to know about life on the seas. When they both lay on deck, a tangle of arms, legs, and heavy coats, Lis thumped her aunt on the back of the head.

“It’s only a year,” she reminded her. And another after that and Lis would have her own ship, but she let that go unsaid.

“Make no promises to me, Elissa Cousland,” Idaline smirked at her as she rolled up to sit, reaching out to drag Lis up.“Save those for your love, and give the sea the remainder.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Yes, captain,” Idaline corrected, straightening the collar of Lis’s greatcoat.

“Yes, captain.”

*

“Is that…?” Fergus didn’t recognize her, but now that Kel had finally accepted that she was as grown—if not more—as he was, he would know Lis anywhere.

Even with what had to be the most monstrous hat he’d ever seen perched on top of her head.

She knew how to make entrance. He knew that, of course, this was not the first time she had arrived home, horse prancing, mabari trotting behind them. The dog—Caleb—was just another of her foreign acquisitions, a pup found lost in Kirkwall and in need of a home. Caleb had found that home in Lis, and Kel understood. He was just as lost, just as found, when she settled that wide open gaze of hers on him and smiled as if she was his.

“Oh, that’s Lis,” he chuckled, watching from the battlements as she reined the forder to a halt. “The hat might be grander, but—“

She swept her hat off with a flourish, the elaborate bouquet of multicolored feathers along its brim bouncing jauntily. Her coat was draped dramatically over the rump and sides of her horse, wool the color of holly leaves, a color they both knew was his favorite, and the thought that she had dressed, even a little, for him had Kel’s heart beating hard and fast in his chest.

“Good day to you too.”

Her voice was bright and clear. She no longer cringed at the crowd that inevitably gathered to welcome her home, but she also didn’t tarry. Lis dismounted, passing her horse off to the stable girl and grabbing her saddlebags, swinging them over one shoulder as she made her way past bows and curtsies and smiles of greeting.

“Don’t unsaddle him,” she called after the forder. “Give him some water, loosen his girth so he can cool, but I won’t be long.”

She smiled over her shoulder, accepted a string of birthday wishes, then snapped her fingers at Caleb. The mabari fell in behind her horse, tongue lolling happily.

“Water for Caleb too, please, and have someone saddle Ser Gilmore’s horse.”

This last was nearly lost beneath further merry calls. Kel blinked.

“What does she mean?” Fergus asked, frowning as Lis made her way across the courtyard and toward the stairs. “She won’t be long?”

Kel shrugged, not quite content to wait for her at the head of the stairs, but uncertain as to whether or not he should run down to meet her. Had he heard correctly? Had she asked for his horse?

She charged up before he could decide, boots ringing sharply against the stones, coattails flowing out dramatically behind her revealing gleaming black leather and dark suede. The knife hilts at her sides glinted nearly as bright as the buttons on her coat, the conches of her belt, and he was forced to admit that if he saw her striding across the deck of a ship he was meant to defend, he would be tempted to surrender it to her. Her hat was beneath one arm, felt the color of aubergine, feathers quivering with every purposeful step.

Maker’s breath, Kel sympathized too much.

She stopped two steps below him, chin lifted to the morning. The light moved over her face, praise and promise, a familiar lover. She bore evidence of its touch still, cheeks bright red and freckled, the scar on her jaw a darker rose.  

“Ser Gilmore.” Her eyes were like sun-dappled oak leaves, and just as touched with shadow.

He fought the urge to bow, knew that she’d have his hide if he did, but there was a not always quiet authority in Lis, something born on the sea and not in the halls of her ancestral castle. She wouldn’t appreciate that either. He would have to remember to tell her.

“Happy birthday.” It seemed the safest thing to say and the right one. The smile that lit her face was radiant.

“You remembered.” She nodded once. “Good.”

“Of course, I remembered.” Why in all of Thedas would she think he could forget her birthday?

“Fergus, close your mouth.” Her gaze never left Kel’s. “Please inform Captain Markus that I’ve need of Ser Gilmore for the afternoon. Tell mother and father we’ll be home for dinner.”

“I…what?” Fergus sounded as confused as Kel was, but at least Kel had the sense not to advertise his befuddlement.

“Thank you.” Lis balanced her bags on her shoulder and offered Kel her hand. “If, of course, you don’t mind riding out with me for a bit.”

Kel eyed her hand with no small amount of trepidation. He didn’t know what she was doing, but he knew that every move was deliberate. Every word, every gesture. The extension of her hand, sleek black glove still in place, was important. He just didn’t know how yet.

“I could ask your guardians for permission,” Lis whispered unsubtly, one corner of her lips teasing up. “But as they’re my guardians as well and we’re both finally grown that seems unfair and unnecessary.”

Kel stared down at her, utterly dumbfounded.

“What are you doing?” he hissed back.

“I’m going to court you proper,” she replied, easy as a wish.

“Court?” Fergus demanded, and Kel was glad. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.

“But we’ll need to discuss terms,” Lis continued as if her brother weren’t two paces away and listening to everything she said. “That is, of course, if you agree to my proposal.”

“Terms?”

His back was to Fergus, but Kel didn’t need to see to know that his friend’s mouth was still opening and closing twice as often as he needed to speak. Lis’s grin was incorrigible now, her hand unwavering beneath the outstretched hesitance of his.

“Fergus really!” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, eyes sparkling as she fought a laugh. “You look like a grouper.”

“I do not!”

“So, what’s it going to be?” She tipped her head to the side, regarding him carefully. “Will you ride out with me, Kel?”

He couldn’t tell her no. Not here, not with the pale winter sun moving over her beautiful face. Not with her eyes so filled with hope. If he was going to break her heart—and his—better that they were somewhere else, somewhere quiet and private. There was no way around what was coming, and he supposed it was well past time he explained, told her once and for all why he could not give her what she wanted.

What she so very much deserved.

“Of course, I will.”

Kel slipped his hand in hers, and hoped she couldn’t feel his fingers trembling.

*

She wore her favorite clothes like armor—some of it was—but Lis still felt naked. And not the good kind of sun on her back, salt spray in the northern air, fruity drink in her hand kind of naked.  No, this was the vulnerable, exposed, waiting to be judged kind of naked. Lis tugged on the wide cuff of her gloves and tried not to fidget in the saddle as she relived the entire scene over and over in her head.

By some miracle, she hadn’t faltered. She had stared up into his handsome face, watched his eyes shift from clear blue to stormy grey and her lips hadn’t tangled. She had delivered the lines she had spent days rehearsing. She hadn’t swooned. She had worn a dashing hat. She had marched into Castle Cousland with the swagger of rogues and pirates and she had swept her love off his feet.

Or so she hoped.

Lis stared at the river, watched it pass in a blur of tumbled stones and dark, sluggish water as they cantered along. They turned slightly inland at the first small tributary, winding their way through rocky outcroppings, following shallow water as clear as glass.  Kel hadn’t asked where they were going, and now he didn’t need to, but they hadn’t talked much as they left the castle behind.  Just “how have you been?” and “you’re looking well,” every real question he didn’t ask landing like a knife between her shoulder blades. She could feel his gaze on her as they rode, but damned if Lis could discern him.

They had never had trouble with silence. Not even when she told him she loved him. This was new, and terrible, and by the time they reached Pirates’ Cove, Lis was a wreck of nerves and brittle edges. The land rose suddenly, a small thin fall singing softly before a wealth of shadows and Lis ducked, urging her reluctant mount into the cold, damp and dark. Kel and Buc followed behind, the horse an old friend and familiar enough with adventures that stretched back a decade.

“I don’t remember it being so small,” Kel said, voice echoing off of the cave walls.

Lis chuckled. “If a horse can fit through here, it’s not small. “ The cave was short, so short that sunlight already reached toward them, a softening of darkness, then a dark, faint light. “There were these caves near Salle, Maker, now that was tight. The descent must have taken a half hour and there were places I had to crawl.”

She shook her head. “That, I can tell you, was something I only did once.”

“Smuggling.” There was a knowing smirk in his tone and Lis hated to disappoint him.

“Goatherding,” she said with a shrug he couldn’t see. “Some kid lost a kid, damn fool that I was I went looking for the thing. We figure she went in looking for mushrooms, got lost in the dark and the dank. I couldn’t leave her to starve.”

“No.” She could hear his smile. “I don’t suppose you could.”

They emerged through a curtain of ivy and Kel gasped.

“Maker’s breath, it hasn’t changed.”

The cove opened up, about twice the size of Lis’s quarters in the keep. The cliffs reached tall and grey around them, granting only a patch of bleak winter sky, and leaving most of the ground in shadow during one part of day or another and consequently the ground was covered with moss, thick and vibrant, the odd scattering of grass looking rather lost. The stream they had been following diverted mostly around the rocky elevation, but a thin rivulet fell from the northern end, formed a pool just large enough for thirsty children and the occasional captive horse or two.

Lis smiled. “Not much,” she agreed. “Our tent rotted.”

She nodded to a stretch of canvas erected in one narrow corner of stone.

“You’ve been here already.”

“That or real pirates found our hideaway.” She grinned, sliding down from her horse. “I brought the firewood early this morning. The food and blankets too. Not the best weather for a picnic but…”

She took the forder’s bridle off, snagged her saddlebags, and gave the horse a nudge so that he would know to go forage. Kel followed suit and she tried not to stare at the broad expanse of his back, the subtle shift of muscles beneath the quilted leather of his jacket. His hands were light on Buc’s tack, a gentle scratch on fuzzy jaw, a quiet pat on the neck before he turned the buckskin loose. The sun, weak as winter, burnished the ends of his hair, and Lis tried not to be jealous of those soft, gilding touches.

“You’ve gone to an awful lot of trouble, Lis.”

“No trouble,” she said, turning her back to him, cheeks flushing. “Courting remember?”

“Lis…”

“Just make yourself comfortable.” She tossed her bags near the blankets and crouched to light the fire, her back very deliberately to him. “There’s a hamper underneath the blankets. Set our lunch out. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

And babbling, but she was too afraid to stop. He had to at least hear her out didn’t he?

Her hands were shaking as she struck steel and flint. She listened to him make their partial camp, saw from the corner of her eye that he had unrolled two of the blankets, spreading one beside her, and the other across the soon-to-be fire. The distance hurt in ways a thousand leagues never had.

“I’m not a child,” she whispered, as much to herself as to him.

“I know you aren’t,” he replied soberly.

Lis sighed in relief as sparks finally rose, bright and blue, searing tinder and catching flame. Her breath trembled as she added it to a handful of small sticks.

“Well,” she said, feeding a larger piece into the growing fire. “I guess that’s something.”

She took a slow, deep breath. “So you don’t love me then.”

“Of course I love you.”

Lis sat back on her heels, watched the fire finally catch, flames licking up toward the narrow peak of the pyramid.

“You say ‘of course’ an awful lot for a man who doesn’t seem to know what it means,” she said evenly.

She could quite bring herself to look him in the eye, but she saw his lips twitch toward a smile.

“I meant—“

“I know what you meant,” Kel said. “And I meant what I said.”

Lis looked up at him them.

“You _love_ me?”

“Of course I love you,” he repeated.

“I swear to the Maker, Kel.” She was on her feet before she realized it. “If you—“

He shook his head, lifted both hands and whatever merry threat she had been about to make faltered right along with the steps she had been about to take to reach him.

“Doesn’t matter,” he stared into the fire and she was shocked to see tears in his eyes. “I can’t love you, Lis.”

“You…’ _can’t_ ’?” She stared at him, realization dawning too late.

She had heard the word from him before, when she was too young to fully grasp it, when she hadn’t cared that he didn’t have a string of sweethearts. She had never asked him about lovers, only assumed that like her he didn’t want them.

“I _can’t._ ” The emphasis almost cracked the word on his lips, but he met her eyes, sorrow and longing swirling deep and quiet in the center of maelstrom.

“Because you’re broken,” Lis said slowly.

She took a step toward him, cursed her wobbly land legs when she faltered, giving him enough time to gain his feet, to put another step between them.

“Because I’m broken,” he said firmly.

*

“How?” Lis asked too quietly.

She didn’t believe him, and he supposed that was his fault. It wasn’t something they had ever talked about, wasn’t something he had ever talked with anyone about really. Who did one speak to about such things? Only a best friend, and she was his. For too long she had been too young, and then she had loved him too much.

“How?” Lis repeated, louder, harsher, voice echoing off of the stone around them. Her gaze sought his across the smoke and embers. “You’re the most loving person I know, Kel. If you love me too, then you love me too. There is no can’t.”

“It’s not a question of love.” He paced away from her, hands clenched so tight that the leather of his gloves creaked in protests and his knuckles ached. “It’s—“

He ran one hand through his hair, stared blindly toward the walls of the cove. “Dammit, Lis! You’re not oblivious,” he said, blood rushing furiously into his face. “You heard what the other boys used to call me.”

Lis snorted. “They called Fergus a hunchback and a eunuch for two straight years,” she said flatly. “And don’t get me started on all the creative synonyms for prude and trollop _I_ heard.”

“Well, in my case they were right,” he snapped bitterly.

“They…”

She touched his arm and Kel startled so hard away from her that he nearly tripped. Her grip was strong on his bicep, stance wide to keep them both on their feet.

“What do you mean, they were right?” she asked softly.

The compassion in her eyes was the last thing he wanted; Kel pulled away too fast, watched the rejection sting bright in her cheeks. He paced across the cove and this time she let him go.

“Is this…?” She took a deep breath, blew it out, took another. “Is this about sex?”

“Of—“

“I am going to injure you,” she interrupted, fury hot, all teasing gone. “If you say those words one more fucking time. There is no ‘of course’ right now.”

His back was too her, but Kel covered his face with both hands anyway. His ears were throbbing with humiliation.

“Yes,” he said, refusing to add to his suffering by looking at her. “It’s about sex. I…”

How did he phrase it so that she would understand?

“I don’t think I want it.”

“Ever?” she asked. “Or just with me?”

“What?”

He did turn to face her then, peering through his fingers like a frightened child. She stood three paces from him, hands on her hips, head tilted, but he saw only curiosity on her face. Not judgment.

“At all?” Kel shrugged helplessly.

“Have you ever wanted to?” she asked, catching her lip between her teeth and chewing thoughtfully.

“No?” Maker’s breath, he had to sit down. She wasn’t mocking him, she wasn’t ridiculing him, and sure, in retrospect it was foolish to think those things of Lis, but she was…trying to understand. “In dreams maybe?”

“That only sort of counts.” Lis grinned. “I used to have some very interesting dreams about _the Bard’s_ cook.”

He gaped at her in surprise.

“Can’t say I ever actually felt those same flutters anywhere when I was near her in the waking world.”

“Lis…” She made it all seem so normal, but it wasn’t so simple. It couldn’t be so simple.

“Hush,” she said, running her fingers absently over the hilt of one knife. “I’m thinking.”

She looked up at him. “Maker’s breath, Kel, have you been carrying this alone all these years?”

His knees finally failed him then and she caught him again, arms tight around his waist, cheek against the frantic beat of his heart.

“You’re not broken,” she whispered as he fought to get his feet back under him. “Oh, Kel. _You’re not_.”

She held on and slowly—so slowly—Kel felt something in him ease. He wrapped his arms around her and she burrowed closer, head beneath his chin like she belonged right there and so did he. He could smell rosewater and salt in her hair, and dear, sweet Maker it felt so good to be held, so good to hold her in his arms, to feel the rise and fall of her breath and know that nothing mattered beyond this.

“It’s just sex,” she mumbled against his chest.

“Sex matters a great deal,” he murmured, too selfish to release her.  Before they were through, he would have to, or she would pull away, but for now, he clung.

“To some people,” she nodded. “Maybe even to me, I don’t know yet.”

“You don’t?”

“Nah. Was saving myself for my one true love. Though,” she tipped her head up to meet his fears with a cheeky grin. “I’ve had some fun figuring out what I think I’ll like.”

His blush was so immediate and total that he almost missed the corresponding rose in her ruddy cheeks. Lis ducked her head back against him.

“I tried,” he confessed roughly.

“You tried?”

Kel nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see him.

“Girls, boys.” He swallowed hard before forging on with his confession. “The kissing was nice enough. I dare say I enjoyed it, but…”

He shrugged. “I never wanted more. Never felt that urgency everyone talks about.”

Somehow the telling was easier with her in his arms.

“So…you might enjoying to kiss me?” she asked tentatively.

“Of course I would!”

She stomped on his foot and Kel jumped back. “Dammit, Lis, that one I fully meant…and fully understood!”

She snickered. “Well that’s something.” She smiled at him. “So...kissing. Good.”

Good. Kel studied her in disbelief.

“It’s...I--” Kel sighed. “I don’t know if I’ll ever want more than that. If I ever could _do_ more than that. What if I can’t make love with you?”

There it was. The worst of it laid bare for her and in no uncertain terms.

“There are lots of ways to make love,” Lis whispered. “We’ve done it before, a thousand letters, a thousand secrets.”

“Lis, that’s not—“

“But if you mean _sex_. Well, there are lots of ways to do that too. Does it…repulse you?”

“No. I just…I guess I’m ambivalent maybe? I mean, I get the draw, the closeness with someone, but...I don’t. You aren’t ambivalent.”

She chuckled, hid her face against him again. “No, I’m not, but I can also take care of myself.”

“Lis…” His breath left him at the images that came to him suddenly and wholly unbidden, her words confirming too many of his confounding dreams.

“I want _you_ , Kel. Don’t you understand? I want to stand with you just like this. I want to go to bed talking about our days. I want fall asleep in your arms, and wake up with you each morning. And before you ask,” she continued hurriedly. “I think I could content myself forever just kissing you.”

Hope was a desperate quaking in his chest and Kel clung to it as tightly as he did her. “I really, really, want that too.”

He couldn’t have it. Couldn’t trap her in a loveless relationship.

“But you’re—we’re, so young Lis. You don’t know…”

“Don’t you dare,” she whispered, pulling away from him. “Don’t tell me what I will want, what I can and can’t know about myself, about my heart. I have loved you my entire life, and I came home this time because the only thing I can’t go another day without is you. I miss you so much it hurts inside.”

She pressed her hand over her heart, tears falling in silent accusation.

“Pledges are made between loves every day, Kel. Between broken people who fit, and whole people who fit beside each other. Don’t you dare tell me that I am any less fit to know the bounds of my own devotion!”

She jerked her chin at him in fury and Kel could only stare at her, too silent, too hopeful. Too afraid.

“The only thing I need to know,” she said, swiping her tears away with one coat sleeve. “Is do you want me?”

“Yes, I want you.” He had never loved anyone so much, never wanted anyone with him as much as he wanted her. “But I want to be _with_ you. Do you understand? And what if I can’t? You should have passion in your life, Lis.”

“Oh, Kel, love.” She covered her face with her hands, paced away then back again, arms dropping to her sides. “I _have_ passion in my life. Two great passions, if you must know. You and the tide. And Andraste, preserve me, I think you’re the greater pull.”

“But—“

“Won’t you at least give us a chance?” she asked. “Let us learn together. I promise, _promise_ , I will never pressure you for sex.”

“Maker’s breath, Lis! I know you wouldn’t. But I…” He pressed on. “I don’t want you missing out.”

“Missing out?” She huffed. “People go lifetimes never knowing what we have together, Kel. Do you realize that?”

Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. But he was starting to.

“So what if they have sex and we don’t? I say _they_ are the ones missing out.”

“Lis…” There were so many things he wanted to ask her. So much that he still had to say.

”It doesn’t matter.”

The look he shot her was gimlet.

“I’m sorry, of course it matters. It matters to you, and you matter to me, but Maker!” Lis yanked off her gloves, tucked them in her belt with obviously trembling fingers. “It doesn’t matter the way you think. You should have told me years ago, Kel.’

“I couldn’t.”

She had to know why.

“Fine you couldn’t.”

She was angry, though at what he wasn’t certain. Not him, and hopeful fool that he was, that was all that mattered.

“But you should have.” She rubbed her eyes. “And I’m glad you told me now.”

“I’m…” Kel took a breath, realized that what he had been about to say was true. “I’m glad I told you now too.”

“And you’ll let me love you?” she asked, taking a cautious step back toward him.

“Could I stop you?” Kel asked, smile teasing.

“No, but you could stop me from doing this.” She took another step closer, and reached up, laying one warm palm against his cheek. “And this.”

There was only one step between them and he took it before she could, wrapping her in his arms and holding her against him.

“I love you,” she said, holding his gaze through misty eyes. “Just as you are. I am always going to love you. Just as you are. Do you understand?”

“Lis…” He leaned in, nuzzling her hair, dropping a kiss on her temple.

“And you’re right, we _are_ young.”

“Ha.” He turned his face into her palm, placed a kiss on the center. “You said I was right.”

It wasn’t quite the victory it should have been.

“Don’t get used to it.” She stretched up on tiptoes, pressed her cheek to his. “You didn’t let me finish anyway.”

“We are young,” she repeated quietly. “And whatever we are and how that works together is something we’ll figure out. Together. But Kel?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m always going to love you. I am always going to want you and I really need to know if you believe that.”

“I do.” The affirmation surprised him, seemed to surprise her too.

Her eyes went wide, and a fresh flood of tears slipped down her cheeks. “You do?”

Maker, how could he not? There was nothing in all of Thedas as constant as Elissa Cousland’s heart.

“I do.”

She reached up, caught his face in both hands, dragging him down until his forehead rest against hers. Her breath left her on a rush.

“Thank the Maker,” she whispered. “You really do.”

She swallowed hard, shoulders shaking. “And I’m yours? Finally?”

“I’m yours,” he returned. “Finally.”

She licked her lips. “Then…if you don’t think you would mind too much, I’d appreciate a kiss from you.” The words were a rapid tumble. “Before I embarrass us both by crying.”

“I hate to tell you this,” Kel said, closing his eyes as relief washed over him, and love. A love that was proving so profound, so persisting, he thought that maybe he could learn to love himself more for it. “But we’re both crying.”

There were still doubts, insecurities, parts of himself that he had run from, scared of what he might find within if he looked too hard, and they might linger, but for the first time in his life Kel wondered if maybe they weren’t as strong as he’d always believed.

“Dammit.” Lis brushed her thumbs across his cheeks, scattering teardrops into the morning.

“But yes,” he said, smiling down at her. “I would very much like to kiss you.”

She held her breath. Kel watched her eyes flutter closed, pressed a gentle peck to her eyelids and watched her smile. He bussed a kiss to the end of her nose and watched her scowl.

“I love you,” he whispered, lips a breath above hers. “And you should know I’m scared to death.”

“I love you too,” she whispered back. “And so am I.”

Her hands were light upon his face, neither guiding nor demanding, but she lifted her chin just slightly, parted her lips on a ragged inhale.

“We’ll be brave together,” Kel promised.

Her lips were soft beneath his, and he kissed her gently, reverently, every touch between them a question quickly answered. She melted against him, the solid weight of her a heady comfort, arms tight around his waist.

“You said you could do this forever?” Kel asked, catching her lips with his, tasting, learning, committing every hitch in her breath to memory.

“I did.”

His hands roamed her back, one splaying across her shoulder blades, the other reaching to cradle the graceful curve of her neck.

“Alright.” He kissed her again, lips grazing her jaw, teasing back to her lips and darting away until a frown marred her brow and she turned her face searching for him. “You can court me.”

“Kel—“

He kissed her before she could swear at him, knew from the twist of her lips exactly which words were coming. She made a grumpy sound of assent, drew in a breath that he stole with no small amount of pride, kissing her again sweet and tender and hopeful of forever.

 


End file.
